Forty Six & 2: Team Ten
by CellCloneBot
Summary: Team Ten (Shikamaru, Ino, Choji) and their story of becoming genins and excellent ninjas. Soon, Choji will have his arc.
1. Shikamaru Says Some Strange Statements!

Forty Six And 2: Team Ten  
  
Chapter One: Shikamaru Says Some Strange Statements!  
  
Sarutobi Asuma leaned back on the chair in the class room he was meeting his new genin students in a classroom of the Ninja Academy. The door slid open and a blond girl wrapped in bandaids and dressed in purple entered followed by a heavy boy with a white scarf and had his blue bandana wrapped like underwear over his head that had two large spikes of red hair pointing out from underneath them. "Oh no," Asuma put his large hands over his eyes. His fingers parted and he peaked to see the tired downcast face of his final member of this three person group. "What kind of shit is Hokage pulling on me?" He threw his arms into the air. In his dense navy green vest, he searched for a smoke. "I'll be back, when I'm back."  
  
He opened the window and leaped out to the group a few stories below his team's floor. The final boy to enter, yawned and reached out his shiny bare arms. "I knew this group would exist." Nara Shikamaru stated in his flagging tone.   
  
"How could you know?" The girl, Ino, said. She displayed her back him; her long blond hair covered a stripe of it with a pony tail. Her arms crossed and her face hoister high with spirited smugness symbolized with a mouth opened smile. Her head twisted and she glared at him with one eye. "You were surprised when Iruka told us the teams."  
  
"How can I explain this to you?" He asked his own holiness, himself. Shikamaru turned the twist-tie to tighten the bond of his hair that exploded upwards from the top of the back of his head. "Each of our fathers were in the same group. That is how I knew."  
  
Ino rejected her head from him. "Damn, why hadn't I thought of it like that?"  
  
The fat boy with red swirls on his cheeks had occupied his time digging into a bag of chips. "What's taking the teacher so long?"  
  
A-------------------   
  
Asuma found a fellow Jounin on the seat of a swing hanging off a branch of a tree. "Hey, Kakashi!" Asuma bellowed in his deep voice. The ninja with most of his face covered with a blue slanted headband and a matching cloth around his mouth and nose looked up from his book and nodded to his bearded friend. "Do you have a smoke?"  
  
"I was sort of saving it for after I fail my students." Kakashi stated. His revealed eye closed halfway. "Sure, why not?"  
  
Kakashi opened a pocket on his vest over his chest. A large hand rolled smoke dropped down to his blue fingerless gloved hand. It was passed to Asuma who smelled it. "Some wacky tobacky, you got here." Asuma inspected it and Kakashi's eye widened as Asuma looked uncertain. "What is this?"  
  
"I call it...umm..." Kakashi tapped the bridge of his book on his lips, "ninja grass."  
  
Asuma pulled out a zippo and lit it. He held the smoke between two fingers, which had caused him to put it between his two inner fingers and drop his middle finger because it was so fat. He took a whiff and blew out the smoke. "No, no, no." Kakashi waved his finger and took the smoke between his index finger and thumb. "Hold it like this, and when you take the smoke in," Kakashi inhaled through his mask in a long drag then his voice stained when he talked and held the smoke in, "you gotta hold it in for a hella long time."  
  
When the smoke was beat, Asuma had cow eyes and chuckled frequently. "Thanks, ah, ninja guy. Are you hungry?"  
  
B-------------------  
  
Team ten waited for their instructor to show up and when he did, he grapped the chips from Akimichi Choji's bandaided hand. His mouth dropped and he was forced to pull another bag out of his pouch. "Hey, team," Asuma sprouted with his mouth full of chips. "Have you ever wondered why the sky is blue?"  
  
"No, because it isn't blue." Shikamaru pronounced. "Because most of the world is covered in water, the atmosphere reflects the blue colour of oceans. Like the vastness of space, the sky is mostly black with the..." Shikamaru yawned and rested in his folded arms.   
  
"What? What is it?!" Asume blurted.  
  
"Too troblemsome," He replied.   
  
"What's too troblemsome?" Asume asked and took a seat behind the desk. He rubbed his short dark hair that stood like well kept grass. His hand rubbed his beard. "I'm bored. Tell me your innermost secrets."  
  
"My name is Akimichi Choji." He said.  
  
"Okay, okay, okay," Asume interrupted. "Ino, you can go next. What do you wanta do?"  
  
"Well," she thought for a moment and tapped her nails on the desk, "I want to make my parents proud and cover the whole village in flowers." She waved her hands frantically, closed her eyes and smiled sweetly innocence. "I also want to marry a handsome man who will accept my indepence. He's going to be strong and listen to be contently. His interests will be wide, and as well as sharing in what I love, he will have related hobbies and have a healthy relationship with nature."   
  
She spaced out with her chin in the hand.  
  
"And I..." Shikamaru began but Ino jumped out of her chair and slapped her hands on the desk.   
  
"I'm not done yet!" She said.  
  
Asume laughed and crossed his legs on the desk. He motioned his hand to crack the whip on Shikamaru, "Waaaaahksh!"  
  
Ino stole the snack from Choji and threw it at Asume who fell back off his chair. He got up and fixed his chair. "I wouldn't be interrupted when I'm telling you my dreams." She asserted. "These are the children we are going to have..."  
  
When she was finished, the board had the future three generations of her family. "Shikamaru, do you want to tell me anything?" Asuma asked.  
  
"I want an average life, two children, an average looking wife." He declared. "I will retire and spend the rest of my days playing go."  
  
C-------------------  
  
  
  
In the shadow of a tree, Shikmaru rested with his hands behind his head. A fallen leaf tumbled in the wind and settled on his cheek. This did not stir him. His headphones plugged into his ears and he watched the clouds. The shadow of the tree started to move, and it attached itself to a man at a fruit stand. The man dropped his fruit putting one hand behind his head and with the other grabbed the ass of a woman who was turned away from him.  
  
Shikmaru held his hand down at his hips and towards the sky. He grumbled and the tree's shadow returned to normal. The music drowned out the agruments he had caused. On his favourite and final verse of the song, his humdrum vocal chores flowed with the song he was listening to: "See my shadow changing, /Stretching up and over me. /Soften this old armor. /Hoping I can clear the way /By stepping through my shadow, /Coming out the other side. /Step into the shadow. /Forty six and two are just ahead of me."  
  
Over his head, Ino smiled and winked. Slowly Shikmaru shifted his headphones to his pockets. "What is it?"  
  
"I saw what you did," she explained, "do you want to cause some more trouble?"  
  
"As long as it's not troublesome to me."  
  
D-------------------  
  
With a collection of empty mugs in front of him, Asuma sat next to the Hokage at the bar. As the leader of the village, and the strongest ninja, Hokage restrained himself and had a single glass of wine in his old wrinkled hand. "Tell me about your encounter with the genins." Hokage demanded.   
  
"They are as annoying as ever," Asuma said.  
  
E-------------------  
  
Ino left Shikmaru in the wreak of the go table surrounded by part of the newly formed team eight of Kiba and Hinata. She stamped her feet. "He didn't have to call me an idiot," she spoke to herself. "But the bee following Shino around does explain his alignment with that clan. Still, I hate it when Shikmaru's right."  
  
"What arrogance?" Shikmaru remarked to himself on a comment Kiba had made about Shino. He pointed up to the sky and directed the glances at the sky. His shadow sweeped so smoothly to Hinata. "I've wasted enough time. Ever notice when one person yawns, another person does too?" Shikamaru yawned into his fists and Hinata followed, and then extended them to his side fast causing her to punch Kiba. "Bye."   
  
He walked away and watched Kiba rub his arm and look at Hinata. Around the bend, he spotted his friend Choji in the window of a barbecue buffet. "There are only certain things a man should do alone."  
  
Shikmaru sat down in the booth with Choji. The red meat seared on the large grill that was in the middle of the thick wooden table. "Hey."   
  
"How are you doing, Shikmaru?" He asked.  
  
"Ino and I," Shikmaru started off slowly and dragged on in an unflent pace, "decided.. awwhhh... to prank some people. We went to a clothing store and annoyed a young couple. Ino would enter the girl's mind and critize everything that the guy put on. And when the girl was trying on clothes, I made him use gestures that said that he really wasn't true to what he was saying. Then she challenged me to a game of go, but she kept trying to use her technique on me. I sort of wish I was still under that tree."  
  
"We are going to be tested tomorrow." Choji reminded him.  
  
Shimaru crossed his arms and tapped on the metal plate on his headprotector that he tied around his scrawny bicip over the short grey sleeve of his vest. "Hey, Choji. I was thinking about giving up when we take the test."  
  
"What? Wouldn't you father be mad?"   
  
"I figure there would be nothing he could do about it. I don't want to deal with the recognization of being a ninja. They fight, and they run. There has to be something easier and more natural for my faults."   
  
"Uh-huh." Choji nodded, wiping a smear of sauce off his face. Shock woke up Shikmaru. "You're going to make a fine ninja."   
  
-------- End of Chapter One ------------  
  
Next Chapter: There is some doubt in Shikmaru's mind if he even wants to become a ninja. When the test comes, his teammates are going to have to convince him to try his best, which is trying at all. You know the outcome, but you haven't read the story behind team ten. This part is going to focus on Shikmaru.  
  
Notes: This is a companion fanfiction to "Bugs: Team Eight", which is also written by me. There will be connections between each chapter of the two fanfictions.   
  
Like each first chapter of focusing on a character, I have them listening and/or listening to a song. Here, Shikmaru is listening and singing (badly) along with "Forty Six & 2" by Tool.  
  
Mysteriously, ninja grass does not exist in this world and is quiet legal in Naruto's universe.   
  
Predictions: If you have read the first three chapters of "Bugs: Team Eight", you will know when this is going to end. However, it will fill in more of the first mission with a focus on Team Ten. Since the fanfiction depicting Team Eight has seven chapters already, there may be some overlaps since I never imagined I would write a similar thing with this team.   
  
Comments and suggestions are welcomed as long as it's not too troblemsome. 


	2. Legitimate Lessions to Learn Laziness!

Forty Six And 2: Team Ten  
Chapter Two: Legitimate Lessions to Learn Laziness  
  
The piercing persistent bell of an alarm clock droned in an untidy room. Clothing lay on the floor, screws stuck in the walls but did not hold anything, and an old lamp posted in a corner without a light bulb. On a single mattress, with only its covering, Shikamaru, in the clothes he had on yesterday, sat up and walked to the power plug without its cover and removed the cord of the alarm clock. A picture of the nine passing genins hung on a piece of peeling wallpaper with safety pin. "In every picture the class has taken," Shikamaru commented on the picture, "I invariably block Kiba's face. Why did the teacher pass me?"  
  
He slugged to his doorway that was covered with a grey fleece sheet held up with thumbtacks. He brushed the piling sheet on the floor with his feet and stepped out of his room into the hallway. His father, Shikato, sat at the table in the dining area near the kitchen. A line of split coffee ran down his tattered old grey sleeveless jacket. Shikamaru took a sit across from his father in front of a plate of black burnt toast and a glass of milk.   
  
"Hey, Shikamaru," Shikato said, "there are straving children around the world."  
  
He took a piece of toast off the plate and tapped it on its edge to knock of some of the charred chumbs. "So there is escape from your cooking."  
  
"None, it's impossible," Shikato laughed, "many strong ninjas have succumbed to my cooking."   
  
"How about a tip?" Shikamaru asked.  
  
"No, they were too dead to leave a tip," Shikato retorted, "they have to spend the rest of existense in purgatory doing the dishes."  
  
"No, when I said tip, I had meant advice," Shikamaru stood up from the table. "Cereal, milk, spoon."

* * *

In the open field, Asuma stood waiting for his students. His eyebrow twitched, and he switched into a cross legged position with his hand combing through the coarse hair on under his chin. His pinky pulled across newly grown stumble. "They are taking their time," Asuma groaned and put a new cigarette into his mouth using the old one for a light, "I'm losing my shave and I'm losing my pack. If they don't show up, I can't pass them. And if I can't pass them, I will have to return to teaching. Students are getting louder, growing more lazy, and unfocused. There they are!"  
  
He jumped up to his feet and raised his hand to respond to their waving. Bringing his hand up over his eyes, he saw that they were waving for him to go over to them. Asuma lamented: "Where is the respect? I am the one who has stepped before them."  
  
Reappearing before them, the back of his fist rolled over the top of their heads leaving them sore and rubbing. Ino recovered soon and darted her finger at him. "You can't hit a woman!"  
  
"I don't comply with trash," Asuma scolded and pulled his lit cigarette into his hand to flick it into her face. The bud hit off her and continued on to Choji to her left and across to Shikamaru until it reached Asuma's hand. They were left in shock as Asuma relit it. "What do I do with trash? I burn it. If you can't get me to say that you pass by lunch time, I'll fail you. Without lunch!" Choji chocked on his chips. "Without respect from your classmates!" Ino heard that the most. Asuma looked at the slack Shikamaru. "Do you think that I can't come up with something to scare you into motivating you, smart ass?"  
  
"I've been prepared to quit since the beginning." Shikamaru stated. "Lazy pays off all the time, hard work only can be banked on in the future."  
  
"Ino has forsaken you. It is I would employed her to give me something I can bank on with you. I know everything about the pranks you pulled yesterday." Asuma told him. Shikamaru stared down Ino but she snuck out her tongue. "But who doesn't now?"  
  
"My mother," Shikamaru admitted.  
  
"Now go!" Asuma ordered. They rushed into the forest. The three sat in a tree and Choji tried to keep quiet as he put his bandaided hand into a bag of chips.   
  
"Let's give up," Shikamaru suggested. "I've firgured out how to oppose his plan."  
  
With a push, Ino sent Shikamaru off the branch and crashing into the ground. "Use you mind for something important!"  
  
Ino had a fantasy involing Sasuke. He had looked at her. "I love your long blonde hair." She heard Shikamaru's negative comments all around her: "Why bother trying! How troublesome! Let's give up! What's the point!" They rang throughout her fantasy and Sasuke said, "but Shikamaru convinced you to give up being a ninja and I no longer like you."  
  
Ino grabbed Shikamaru by his light grey vest as he was climbing back up the tree and hung him out in the air. "Look," she pulled his dirty drowsy face to hers, "think of something fast, now!"  
  
She pulled him the rest of the way up and he rested against the truck of the tree and thought with his hands pointing down and his fingers touching. He openned his eyes. Ino snapped her fingers and brighten up with a smile. "I'm too hungry to move," Choji said throwing some more chips in his mouth. Shikamaru gestured for her to come closer to him so he could whipser to her. With his hand to her ear, her smile fainted to a ghostly look.   
  
"That's suicide." She proclaimed.   
  
"If Shikamaru," Choji pointed out, "makes a plan, it will work."  
  
"Shit," Ino said as she put her hands together in front of her face to make a triangle. "Body replacement technique."  
  
She passed out and had control of Choji's body. Shikamaru picked her up and put her down on the ground. He looked up at Choji. "Now take all of his food and throw it down here."  
  
Ino had a hard time getting to all of the food; there were even candy bars hidden in holsters made for weapons. Quickly, Shikamaru removed his vest and wrapped all of the food in there and attacted it to Ino. "Okay, you can leave his body."  
  
Ino regained consciousness and started to run and Choji followed with a fire in his eyes. Behind him, Shikamaru also followed. Ino lead them into the field that Asuma stood in, and she threw the bag of food over him and then ran in a circular path to meet up with it.   
  
"So they found out how to get Choji to run." He commented ready for what he would suspect. "Shikamaru will try to use his shadow to get me, but he doesn't have much to work with to extend his shadow. It would have been better to have lured me into the forest. I don't have to worry about Ino since her technique would be too slow to get me."  
  
She stood behind him as they ran in the direction of Asuma. "Choji could use his multisize and meat tank jutsu, but he is not graceful with that."   
  
"Come on fat ass!" Ino yelled with joy. She pulled down a bottom eyelid with his finger and struck her tongue out at him. Choji stopped and Shikamaru stood a meter a head of him and strenched out his shadow.   
  
"It's not long by a long shot." The instructor recongized.   
  
Ino and Shikamaru were getting ready, this was going to hurt. "Multisize no jutsu," Choji said and his proportions ballooned and his body elipsed the sun up to the base of Shikaramu's feet. His shadow strenched the extra meters to get to Asuma. Ino then used her body switch jutsu and caught him.  
  
"I see, he used Choji to expand his shadow." He thought as he tried to gain control of his body. It was hard since Shikamaru had him trapped in his shadow and Ino had taken control of his mind. "They are certainly suicidal."  
  
"Meat Tank!" Choji yelled and his limbs and head retreated into his body and started to spin. It rolled over Shikaramu, and under Ino's control, Asuma jumped out of the way. "You all pass!" He was forced to say. Choji continued rolling and trampled over the limp body of Ino. Choji stopped the jutsu stumbled on his feet depeated.   
  
Ino returned to her body and Shikamaru returned to his senses; "What a hassle."  
  
Asuma gathered his team up. "Good work," he said in a deep voice. "Anyone willing to be crushed under the weight of a member of Akimichi for the good of the mission is a ninja by my standards. You have all passed. Missions begin tomorrow."  
  
"What I put up with for love?" Ino questioned.   
  
"You don't have to tell me," Shikamaru stated. Ino's eyes widened and she folded up with laughing smacking her hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Shikamaru has a sweetheart he wants to impress," Ino held close to his arm, "who owns that lazy heart of yours?"  
  
"When I said that you don't have to tell me," Shikaramu started, "I meant that I wasn't into listening to what you had to say."  
  
Shikamaru wandered off alone.   
  
"He didn't mean that," Choji told Ino, "when situations are at their worst, there isn't a person for whom he doesn't care."

* * *

The night had come and left the forest dark. Shikamaru lead by the sound of running water, pushed his way pass branches to the source. He yawned into his hand. "I can't believe I haven't returned to bed yet because I wanted to take a walk," he complained, "what do I do on walks except daydream? I could be at home getting real sleep? I'm truly a fool when it comes to practical thinking."  
  
He entered onto the rocky river bed dancing with fireflies and saw Shino lying down glazing at the stars. "Don't you want to go back inside?"  
  
"I never thought of myself on the outside." Shino stated. Shikamaru laid down near the tree line and looked up pass some leaf covered branches to see the stars.  
  
"I look at clouds," he said.  
  
"There isn't a cloud in the sky," Shino said.  
  
"Where else would there be," Shikamaru replied.  
  
"Oh, I see," Shino admitted.  
  
"When I see the stars, I'm reminded of the past," Shikamaru put his hands behind his head. "There is change, yet there is a cycle that I can see time goes through when I look at the past or look up to the stars. If I were to speak of the one thing that remains the same in time, I would mention laziness. The whole universe is filled with conservation of energy and flowing with the forces of other heavily bodies."  
  
"If laziness is true for ten thousand things, than what harm come from it? The universe lets the grass grow under one's feet, is impartial, and it is natural. So," Shino started, "Lao Tzu said: ' If people lack knowledge and desire/ Then they can not act;/ If no action is taken/ Harmony remains.' What I want to imply, is that everything which is lazy has knowledge or desire, and therefore exists in harmony. What you call laziness, I call harmony."  
  
"Do you know the way back to Konoho?" Shikamaru asked. A firefly rested on Shino's hand that he put to his face and blinked rapidly.   
  
"He will guide you," Shino said as the glowing bug flew off into the forest.   
  
"Thanks," Shikamaru said.  
  
"Don't thank me," Shino said.

* * *

Ino knocked on the door to Shikamaru's house and Shikato opened the door. "Oh, it's Inoshin," he paused and pulled down his head, "daughter."  
  
"Don't say it like that!!!" she kicked him in the shin. "Has Shikamaru come back home yet?"  
  
"I didn't know he left." Shikato said. "What's he up to? He's mostly in his room playing Go."  
  
"Today is his genin exam." Ino shouted.   
  
"When did he graduate from the academy?" He asked.  
  
"Don't you know anything about the life of your son?" She asked annoyed.   
  
"He's not dead, that's for sure," Shikato explained, "he'll procrastinate until the sun explodes to take his final breath."  
  
-------- End of Chapter Two ------------  
Next Chapter: First mission. Yeah, if you have read chapter three of Bugs: Team Eight, then you know how it turns out in the end, but what you don't know is the total extend that Team Ten had in that mission. Tactics to the yin-yang!   
  
Notes: Yeah, a huge part of this chapter was ripped off of Bugs: Team Eight chapter two. However, that is the chapter to see if I could even write the relationship between the four in Team Ten. There are less mistakes in it this time around. But writing about Shikamaru really makes a person lazy. I get too in to the character when writing.   
  
Predictions: Soon this will branch off to include material not linked with that of my team eight fanfiction.   
  
Comments and suggestions are welcomed as I need to see which of my fanfictions is worth more time since I have to conserve my enegry.  
  
BTW, thanks for reviewing, Dragon Master Lytore. I almost forgot about this fanfiction.  
  



	3. Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Literature!

**Forty Six and 2: Team Ten**

**Chapter Three:** _Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Literature!_

Asuma and his team were assembled in front of the Mission Office. Outside, team seven complained about their master behind his back. Asuma shook his head and then lead his team through two red doors to a spacious room with a row of tables sorting out and taking missions. At this time, only Iruka and the Hokage were there, under a banter that said: "Everyone Do Your Best".

"Asuma," the Hokage droned, "smoking?"

Asuma looked around and pulled out a pack to dispense a cigarette to the mouths of everyone in the room and they lit. The Hokage and Iruka were quit to put them out, though after Iruka put it behind his ear. His students had even less reaction though Choji ingested it on contact, Ino flashed a pose with it, and Shikamaru just accepted that he was smoking. Choji stopped coughing.

"Shikamaru," Choji said, "you shouldn't smoke; it will dull your taste buds! Don't tell me you are that apathetic to life!"

"I might as well get hooked now so I'm not peer pressured into it," Shikamaru stated, "then I can spend all my money on it so it would prevent me from having to go out so much and entertain people. But to explain that to my parents... trouble is all there is."

"Shikamaru!" The Hokage shouted.

"Understand, Sandaime," Iruka said, "Shikamaru does not expect much out of life."

"Still," the Hokage said. "Sal's Gowns is holding a midnight sales and they are selling Wedding dresses at a very discounted price that it is cost effective to hire ninjas at your rank. Here is a picture of the wedding dress and information about your client."

"We will do our best, Hokage!" Ino said and ushered her team out the door.

Outside Asuma told them around the plan. "There will usually be three different things you need for a mission and that are why it is usual for a team to have three people. No matter what, some qualities in the group will not overlap and make the team more dependable. The three things we need: practical training; dealing with the patron; and observing hidden information. Practical training gives us more experience in our task, dealing with the patron ensures quality of work and returning clients, and finally observing hidden information is to help direct any movements during the actual mission. Ino, I leave you in charge of dealing with the client. Get a down payment and introduce your group. Convince them that we will work to their total benefit. Choji, I don't know for sure, but start with buying some item at a busy store. I will give you money to spend at Hidden Leaf Candy Store which is very busy after Friday school when the students get off at noon. Are you even interesting in any of this?"

Shikamaru sat on at a yard table writing on newspaper. "What should I put?"

"During the cross word, uh?" Asuma asked. Choji went to investigate.

"Should you be spelling a four letter word starting with 'G' and ending with 'R'?" Choji asked. In time, Ino looked over Shikamaru's shoulders and felt embarrassed to complete anger when she punched him in the back of the head.

"No one is going to get that joke, dumbass," Ino told the writer, "play it in easy childish visual humour with sophisticated undertones to get a bigger audience."

The writer groaned and Choji pulled out a pen from thin air and drew a fist coming from a girl to hit the face of the man with who she shook hands.

"That's better." Choji said.

"This whole time as a teacher, I'm going to either be around a kind hearted fat ass that cares about others too much, a lazy and shady cynic who wouldn't care about reaching his potential, and a boy crazed girl who thinks that everything is cute. Who is going to understand me?"

* * *

Ino was there in an honest effort to help a woman realize her dreams of marriage. She would even stop on the way to offer some flowers to further her service to the client. When they met, the dramatic story of the bride-to-be was told from the disproval of the love to her finance to her struggles to run away with him. They used to live under rich families, but they wished love over all that and moved away with no thought or care in the world. It was almost too good to be true, and almost too good to be too good to be true. As a final wish, she did want to marry in a fancy dress.

* * *

After hearing this story, she told Shikamaru, but she was never thinking if he would ever care. Once again through mindless chatter, Shikamaru accepted and told his story to Shino in a very quick and bare in description since Shino knew about this mission from his own experiences having been hired by a different woman for the same reason. Shino would consider it if it was worth his time, but it was not underneath him to think about accepting something and holding stance at his decisions. They set up an appointment.

* * *

Choji was very happy about going on this mission. He would wonder if his eating would be interrupted and admitting that he could take a fall down the stairs without dropping his food in his hands. As with his love of food, he was able to win much to the disappointment to the children. And looking on the way he acted, the children should have thanked him.

* * *

For the appointment, Shino understood about the meeting, and would allow Shikamaru to take his place on the roof where his team was meeting so Shikamaru could bind them all with his jutsu. Understanding that Kiba was on Shino's team and Akamaru would be there, Shikamaru asked how he would not be figured out. Shino told him to wear his bugs and enter a bug clone. It would mask Shikamaru's smell that Kiba or Akamaru could pick up. So that left Team Eight and Ino and Choji in the store with Shino. Shino could take on Sasuke, and if Choji and Ino trick Sakura into Ino's mind switch technique, Ino could control Sakura in distracting Naruto and Choji would be alone to buy the dress. This is the way it happened, and it told less than five minutes to do. Each motion was simple, so they could be followed.

* * *

In was early morning when he was relieved and he went to a store front that was closed but would leave Shikamaru a pillow so he could sleep at a table outside. It was closer to the academy and he could meet the manager as they open. As he was looking in the paper, he read a story about how the Clouds would only move with the Wind, and hangs around mountains where the wind would not move either of them to far apart. The Clouds did not do much except get pushed around by the Wind. He yawned.

"I feel cheated," Shikamaru said, "but what can I do about it? I have read a thousand stories like this but I continue to read. What could I get out of it? It only makes me lazier."

-------- End of Chapter Three ------------

Next Chapter: yeah, a bit summed but, but the whole thing happened at the same time as chapter 3 of Bugs: Team Eight, also written by me and posted here. I suppose because I am writing for the Shikamaru fans that I have kept it easy and trouble free, and been lazy myself. The next, when I write Choji's three chapters, it will be original, and also an optimistic writing style and theme. I am still looking for a song and new title for Choji. He is ready to sing.

Notes: Yeah, this is a close rewriting of Bugs: Team Eight chapter three, but that itself was a close copy of the show Naruto. Which is a reason I may not do Gai's team, though they will have importance in my other fanfiction, but mostly Gai?


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